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introduction
the arcane schools
John Yarker
The object of the following chapters is to give a
broad but condensed view of the various traces which are to be found amongst the
ancients, in their religion, in their Art, and in their buildings -- civil,
sacred, and military -- of a speculative system, such as is now professed under
the designation of Freemasonry. The work is necessarily a compilation of
suitable information gathered from books upon history, mystery, mysticism, and
Freemasonry; but it embraces the most recent views upon these subjects which
have been evolved by a close critical examination, and generally accepted by the
learned.
In the first and second chapters will be found the
proofs of a system of most ancient sacerdotal grades and mysteries which in the
earliest or proto- Aryan, civilisation added to their ceremonies those emblems
of geometry and art which have been transmitted by Freemasonry.
In the third and fourth chapters we see more
clearly the advance which the Aryan civilisation introduced into the primitive
association; the development of a caste organisation, and the reduction of the
more ancient civilisation, by invasions, to a subject state, which in time
created an independent system of Art-Mysteries, combined with natural religion,
or what we now term Freemasonry.
In the fifth and sixth chapters we have attempted
the elucidation of the doctrine and symbolism of the Ancient Mysteries and their
relationship with the minor schools {x} of Philosophy which sprang from them, as
for instance the Pythagorean and Platonic schools, proving that all these
possessed much in common -- in doctrine, rites, and symbols, not only with each
other but with Free Masonry of our own days, without the distinguishing features
of the latter as an operative art; whilst, side by side, the Arcane schools of
Philosophy passed onwards through the centuries of Christianity, in numerous
branches, with the old rites and symbols.
In the seventh and eighth chapters we have, for
convenience, a recapitulation of proofs of the existence and transmission of Art
Mysteries and symbols from the most ancient times to our own days, with details
of the Constitutions of a Fraternity, speculative in its teaching and operative
in its application, for the conservation of Arts and Sciences in their
tripartite application to houses, churches, and fortications, and which entering
this country in British and Roman times from Egypt was modified by Culdee monks
and learned clerics, and so continued as Folc-motes or Guilds in the time of the
Anglo-Saxons.
In the ninth and tenth chapters some space is
devoted to an enquiry as to the origin of the Semitic legends of Free Masonry
which entering this country in Anglo-Norman times, with an Eastern system of
work, of marks, and symbols, were engrafted upon the older Constitutions;
together with some account of the esoteric marks, emblems, and rites of the
organised Building-brotherhood who erected our noble Gothic edices, and
references are made to many of these edifices in illustration of Free Masonry.
We see the end of the Gothic and revival of the Classic Arcanum.
The remaining eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
chapters give a short account of the principal points in the history of
Modern Freemasonry from 1717 to our own days; and which includes a chapter upon
the design, origin and history of what has come to be termed high-grade
Free-masonry, {xi} and out of which sprung the distinction between Ancient and
Modern Masonry, a dissension which continued until the union of these two sects
of Masons in 1813.
Lastly in the Appendix we have added a full series
of Constitutional Charges which continued in force from Saxon times until the
year 1717 and even much later; these we have slightly modernised for the ease of
the reader.
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